Pretty much anyone who was ever into punk rock has some boring story about how it affected them personally. Here's mine (nobody has to read this, but this movie welled up a bunch of old memories and feelings so I feel compelled to exorcise them here): Last time I saw this movie I was 14 or 15-years-old, sitting on a musty couch with Mary Blackwell in the basement of her aunt and uncles' house in Candler Park. Mary was a senior in high school, and I was a freshman. We met because in some morning period class she would graffiti her desk, and later in the day when the room was used for a completely different class, I would come…

There's a slender thread here, and some would probably say in the DNA of punk itself, of creepy shit like white supremacy, homophobia, and genuinely antisocial and violent behavior (as opposed to the cool kind) that to the movie's credit isn't brushed under the rug but isn't quite the subject of serious exploration either. Contrast that with the often straight-ahead mockery of Part II and you have quite a study in how subtle differences in presentation can make a huge difference in material. It's also a study in how much shittier music apparently got in less than ten years.

As always with concert films, mileage will vary depending on one's connection to the music on display. As someone who, when tasked with writing an 8th grade history report on any era of human existence, chose this very scene, the hardcore punk scene in Southern California at the dawn of the 1980s, this is catnip to me.

As Mike Watt wrote and D. Boon sang as part of the greatest punk band of all time, "We learned punk rock in Hollywood, drove up from Pedro. We were fucking corndogs. We'd go drink and pogo." That is this movie.

It's been years since I've seen this and it's interesting to see which…

This is a pretty amazing portrait of a music scene, but fucking hell it looks like an absolutely horrible scene to be part of. While I'm not majorly into this kind of punk rock (X are the only band here I'm really interested in hearing more from), there's an undeniable power to their music; the violence and hatred that both drives and it and is inspired by it, though, I found tough to watch.

The interviews are a curious mix of goofy charm and off-the-cuff racism and homophobia that continually took me off guard, and the closing scenes of the band Fear antagonising their audience is really grim. I'm sure I sound like an old man saying this, but I…

The first part of Penelope Spheeris' trilogy of documentaries about L.A.'s alternative music/lifestyle scene has a near mythical reputation - perhaps largely as a result of its rarity - the only copy I've ever seen is a DVD-R taken off a Japanese laserdisc! The Decline Of Western Civilization is very much a celluloid time capsule, capturing as it does a short period between the 1970s and 80s and concentrating on a handful of Los Angeles punk bands, some on the verge of fame within the scene (an early incarnation of a pre-Henry Rollins Black Flag, and another Flag vocalist Keith Morris with Circle Jerks), others more established (seminal L.A. bands X and Fear), and a few destined for obscurity (art…

In a way, I think Billy Zoom dressed like Elvis, shredding rockabilly riffs in punk songs, standing in a never ending power stance and smiling through the whole show, is the most punk thing in the movie.

I enjoyed like half of the bands. The germs were horrible in this. I understand being wasted on stage is part of the statement, but it didn't make it better, and it didn't make it bad in a good way either.

The most destructive and volatile documentary about rock and roll since the Maysles' "Gimme Shelter". A man had to die in order for that film to go down in infamy. The most impressive thing about "The Decline of Western Civilization" is that no one had to die on camera in order for it to cause an uproar.

Here are some random observations:

Holy shit Keith Morris is a dead ringer for a young Bob Dylan.

Exene is adorable.

Darby Crash is Iggy Pop after the rapture.

The entire sequence with the members of Black Flag in that church basement is gold.

This is a pretty amazing portrait of a music scene, but fucking hell it looks like an absolutely horrible scene to be part of. While I'm not majorly into this kind of punk rock (X are the only band here I'm really interested in hearing more from), there's an undeniable power to their music; the violence and hatred that both drives and it and is inspired by it, though, I found tough to watch.

The interviews are a curious mix of goofy charm and off-the-cuff racism and homophobia that continually took me off guard, and the closing scenes of the band Fear antagonising their audience is really grim. I'm sure I sound like an old man saying this, but I…